Save Article

Who Will Succeed Yeltsin?

By

Adrian Karatnycky

Updated Sept. 24, 1996 12:01 a.m. ET

As a frail President Boris Yeltsin awaits coronary bypass surgery, a fierce struggle for power has erupted at the highest reaches of the Kremlin. This is a natural result of Mr. Yeltsin&rsquo;s policy of filling his government with political rivals, ensuring that he would serve as the essential arbiter between the clashing interests of democratic reformers and the nomenklatura . With Mr. Yeltsin physically debilitated, these factional rivalries have now spun out of control in an endless cycle of contradictory signals and...